Is this just another example of epidemiologists torturing the data until they confess to a spurious but headline-grabbing statistical significance?

California school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson was awarded $286 million in damages last August in his lawsuit alleging that his use of the popular weedkiller glyphosate (sold as Roundup by Monsanto, now a division of A.G. Bayer) had caused him to fall ill with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). A judge later cut the award to only $78 million. The company reportedly faces 9,300 other plaintiffs alleging that the herbicide caused their illnesses.

On its face, a new study published last week finding that exposure to glyphosate does increase the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in humans by 41 percent seems like a gift to the plaintiffs and their attorneys and a confirmation of their claims. The researchers obtained their result by conducting a meta-analysis of previous studies. This finding stands in contrast with the results of the 2017 Agricultural Health Study (AHS) in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which found "no association was apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL and its subtypes." (The AHS has been monitoring the health of thousands of pesticide applicators for a couple of decades now.)

Forty-one percent sounds pretty bad, but let's put in context. About 20 new cases of NHL are diagnosed per 100,000 men and women each year. Assuming that 41 percent figure is right, that would suggest that 8 additional new NHL cases would be expected each year for every 100,000 exposed to glyphosate. Interestingly, the incidence rate of NHL has remained essentially flat even after the advent of herbicide resistant biotech crops encouraged the rising use of glyphosate. Keep in mind that your lifetime risk of developing or dying from cancer if you are male is 40 and 22 percent respectively. If female, the odds are 38 and 19 percent.

Albert Einstein College of Medicine cancer epidemiologist Geoffrey Kabat takes the new study apart and suggests that its findings are badly flawed. The main problem, he argues, is that the researchers combine the results from five case-control studies and one large cohort study which happens to be the one reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute cited above. Case-control studies are notoriously susceptible to the effects of bias, which may be introduced as a result of a poor study design or during the collection of exposure and outcome data.

Kabat points out that the authors of the new meta-analysis combined findings from low quality case-control studies with those of the much higher quality AHS cohort study. Kabat then persuasively argues that in order to drag their meta-analytic results over the finish line to statistical significance, the authors of the new study picked only the highest relative risk ratio figure for NHL from the AHS study. If they had chosen any of the other three AHS risk ratios reported for NHL Kabat suggests that their "overall result would likely not have been statistically significant."

"One can't escape the impression that the motivation behind what presents itself as a disinterested academic study was to include a selected and unrepresentative result from the highly-respected AHS in their meta-analysis and use the far inferior case-control studies to jack up the summary relative risk to obtain a statistically-significant finding," concludes Kabat.

Time will tell if this new study is just another example of broken science in which epidemiologists keep torturing the data until they confess to a spurious but headline-grabbing statistical significance.

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84 responses to “A New Study About Roundup and Cancer Doesn't Say What You Probably Think It Does”

So it raised a fraction of a percent (and I bet hardly even that when you figure in margin of error). What is the rate of cancer in similar products (including natural herbicides). They won’t do apples to apples, they hate it because it’s a big chemical company. No one is going to use salt and vinegar to kill their yard. Get over it hippies.

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Not entirely. There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of meta-analyses. Google “arguments against meta analysis” and look at NIH papers, etc.

Meta analysis is a statistically subjective exercise. As the researcher, you get to choose which studies to include in your analysis, which factors to weight more, and in the end whether to publish at all.

While there are flaws in specific examples of meta-analysis, there is no other way to aggregate research results to offer a larger and more valid picture. “…you get to choose which studies to include in your analysis” may be true, but without meta-analyses anyone is free to simply cite the individual study that best supports the position they wish to promote. That’s the problem with many of the arguments from the anti-GMO crowd: they cite a couple of problematic studies suggesting the possibility of health risks from GMO crops, but ignore the fact that meta-analyses have contradicted those small-scale examples.

That ruling was a travesty. I’m no special pleader for Monsanto, but just because something is a massive corporation doesn’t mean shit.

My question is that if this amount was awarded to an individual suing Monsanto, how much in damages should Monsanto get from each and every regulatory agency that approved their products after supposedly rigorous testing?

Again, the issue isn’t “Does glyphosate cause cancer?” (it doesn’t) as much as it is “Does glyphosate cause more cancer than say, paraquat?” (Paraquat being a known acute toxin, known to be causally associated with Parkinson’s Disease and fully legal in the UK until 2007 and still legal in the US.) Or, even more accurately, “Does glyphosate cause more harm than, say paraquat, or fields full of thistles, jimson weed, stinging nettles, hogweed, and wild or cow parsnip?”

Though, I suppose, with careful cultivation of the nettles, parsnip, hogweed, and jimson weed, you could end up with just the right amount of atropine from the jimson weed to dull the discomfort induced by the stings and chemical burns induced by the other flora.

They’re looking in the wrong place for the problem. The problem isn’t mainly that it is directly toxic or causes cancer. The problem is that it destroys gut bacteria – in insects, in animals, in everything. That’s been known since glyphosate was discovered. What we are just now beginning to understand is that gut bacteria are not just parasites inside us. We depend on them and co-evolved with them.

There are a ton of digestion/metabolic-origin diseases that have gone up dramatically over the last 20-25 years. And my bet is that those have increased cuz of how our gut bacteria are changing.

And that is also the problem with the GMO grains. Not that the genetic modification itself is a problem. But that most GMO’s have been modified to be glyphosate-resistant – which means they are being soaked in glyphosate and that makes it inside the grain and we then eat it.

That’s a useful read particularly the part re the Denmark study (apparently the FIRST actual experiment replicating a gut biome – and that’s a year ago in a rat).

But his snark (gut bacteria could only be affected by glyphosate if the host was malnourished/starving) is at odds with his admission about the relative ‘lifespans’ of bacteria v human host – and the unstated reality that everything eaten passes thru the large intestines in a day or two anyway. The bacteria is self-interested and the bacterias ‘lifespan’ is 30 minutes or so and the only thing that matters to the bacteria is – is the bacteria gonna starve before cell division.

Which means that even inside our gut, bacteria may well need to use the shikimate pathway to synthesize amino acids well under that 20 minute lifespan hence be vulnerable to glyphosate. It can’t wait 50 generations for the human to stop by a McD’s on the way home or 5 generations for some tasty bit of tryptophan/etc to wander down from elsewhere in the colon.

And the impact could also be very different re different species of bacteria – some beneficial, some pathogenic. Which would either compound over time – or make it more difficult to metabolize effectively at different times. Denmark study doesn’t falsify that. It is ONE study.

Bacteria in our gut are likely to have access to a wide array of amino acids and would not need that pathway. Only people with a diet lacking in aromatic amino acids such as Tryptophan would the bacteria need to make much use of it. High corn diet maybe with low total calories.

Only people with a diet lacking in aromatic amino acids such as Tryptophan would the bacteria need to make much use of it. High corn diet maybe with low total calories.

You mean like the livestock we eat as protein to get tryptophan? That sort of glyphosate-heavy GMO corn/soy/alfalfa diet? Where the ‘acceptable daily intake’ for glyphosate in livestock feed is 50x higher than the level for humans – and has been adjusted upwards periodically over the last couple decades? You ever wondered if that source of dietary tryptophan has changed its tryptophan levels since whenever its tryptophan levels were measured and assumed to be constant?

There are a ton of digestion/metabolic-origin diseases that have gone up dramatically over the last 20-25 years.

No, there aren’t. There’s been a dramatic increase in the amount of vague hand waving and false associations between any given symptom or a Texas-Sharpshooter-style constellation of symptoms and a metabolic ‘disease’, but that doesn’t mean there’s been an actual increase of digestion/metabolic-origin diseases.

It could be completely explained by affluent white people with an increasing tendency to medicate their psychoses away having more time to gaze at their navels and dream up whimsical reasons why they aren’t as thin and blemish-free as the people they see in magazines.

Your link is at odds with your assertion. Good link though. Handwaviness (or drug marketing on TV – which unfortunately is also exactly correlated with this timeframe) could well explain why patients are going to the doctor more often for selective digestive/metabolic diseases (and not for others) – presumably some reasons for going to the doctor – and golly dying too – are more fashionable now?? But are you saying that doctors are also in on it?

And if both patients and doctors are in on it – then why should I believe your internet assertion that nope it just ain’t so?

No it’s not. My assertion is that there isn’t an onslaught of new diseases.

And if both patients and doctors are in on it – then why should I believe your internet assertion that nope it just ain’t so?

Because you don’t understand the difference between hypothesizing, philosophizing, and objective fact? The diseases that kill us today are the same diseases that killed us 20-30 yrs. ago, digestive/metabolically speaking. The only thing that’s changed is the vague hypothesizing as to any given cause. The patients and the doctors may in fact be, and almost certainly are tainting your perception of the falsehood that “There are a ton of digestion/metabolic-origin diseases that have gone up dramatically over the last 20-25 years.” when, in fact, the opposite is true.

Yes the link is at odds with the assertion. Even the overall macro-level incidence of all those diseases combined over the last 40 years hints at it. That macro curve is U-shaped – decline from the 70’s to 80’s, decade or more of flat, rise since then. Drill down to the specific diseases and they are a different set of diseases driving the decline then to the increases now. The diseases that drove the decline then have either continued to decline or flattened and just aren’t very relevant now. The diseases that have increased are ‘new’ in terms of their relevance to any overall volume and are different in origin/cause than the older ‘digestive system’ diseases.

I’m perfectly willing to argue the validity of idea that there is a strong element of ‘marketing new diseases’ to the patient population. Where people aren’t really sick but after seeing a few hundred ads, they go see the doctor for reasons that have nothing to do with their actual physical health. Or where doctors go along with that game and diagnose something and prescribe something to reinforce their ‘new’ medical role as ‘intermediary’ between direct-marketing pharmas and patient/consumers.

But your link doesn’t show that at all. Nor could it since that argument is an assertion that some of those diagnoses are ‘fraudulent’ and some are ‘real’. There’s nothing (presented in that link re actual diagnoses/outcomes) beyond your say-so to distinguish which is which. So I go with the stats not your say-so.

JFree|2.21.19 @ 5:19PM|# “There are a ton of digestion/metabolic-origin diseases that have gone up dramatically over the last 20-25 years. And my bet is that those have increased cuz of how our gut bacteria are changing.”

My bet is any cite you have for this comes packed with luddite claims regarding ‘kemikulz’.

It’s called p statistic hunting. It’s a problem. It’s the same bullshit used for the Mann hockeystick bullshit. Ypu do enough trials you’ll eventually get a trial that falls out of your confidence bounds.

“Forty-one percent sounds pretty bad, but let’s put in context. About 20 new cases of NHL are diagnosed per 100,000 men and women each year. Assuming that 41 percent figure is right, that would suggest that 8 additional new NHL cases would be expected each year for every 100,000 exposed to glyphosate.”

In other words, it’s a risk you’re willing to let others undertake. You’re a portrait in courage, Ron.

I put on some gloves and use Roundup sparingly (whatever that means) to kill the weeds in my brick walkways. I guess I could use that stuff from Vietnam if Roundup weren’t available. LOL

Oh, yeah … now I remember … Agent Orange. By the way, the goldfish in my little outdoor pond haven’t died from it yet. Surely some of the over-spray must get into my little 2 x 12 foot goldfish pond, huh? It’s very useful in managing a garden. Roundup rocks!

I guarantee that if Roundup disappears from agriculture food prices will slowly but inexorably start to rise world wide. Left wing greenies will blame absolutely everything under the sun (particularly capitalism) but the real reason will be that farmers are harvesting more weeds and less crop.

Higher food prices are going to mean, guess what? More human beings on the margins starving to death. All so that moronic jurors in very rich countries can play Santa Claus with other people’s money and then go home and brag to all their lefty friends (virtue signaling) what a wonderful thing they did.

What will be the death rate of starvation victims compared to the hypothetical NHL casualties? I don’t know. I’m not God. I am a poor Montana farm boy at heart who spent a lot of years spraying weeds with 2-4-D, which was really nasty stuff. If we factored back to what wheat cost per bushel in 1914, I would guess the bun on a hamburger alone would cost maybe $12 in flour.

Everyone here has an ideological axe to grind. This Geoffrey Kabat dude, for example, is all about attacking claims of health risks. In the past, he argued that second hand smoke is harmless, as a result of his study which was funded by the tobacco industry. Not exactly an impartial observer.

As applied to public perception of environmental risks, Kabat cites the case of Love Canal near Buffalo, New York. This was said to be a neighborhood in which the residents were exposed to extraordinarily high levels of dangerous industrial pollution. But “only later, after years of more careful study by many scientists and agencies, did it turn out that, in fact, there was no evidence of any abnormal exposure among residents or any ill effects” (p. 54). And yet “Love Canal” is still a catchphrase for horrible environmental pollution.

I visited the canal area at that time. Corroding waste-disposal drums could be seen breaking up through the grounds of backyards. Trees and gardens were turning black and dying. One entire swimming pool had been popped up from its foundation, afloat now on a small sea of chemicals. Puddles of noxious substances were pointed out to me by the residents. Some of these puddles were in their yards, some were in their basements, others yet were on the school grounds. Everywhere the air had a faint, choking smell. Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces.

The United States National Research Council (NRC) surveyed Love Canal health studies in 1991. The NRC noted the major exposure of concern was the groundwater rather than drinking water; the groundwater “seeped into basements” and then led to exposure through air and soil[60]:196 noted several studies reported higher levels of low-birth weight babies and birth defects among the exposed residents[60]:190?91 with some evidence the effect subsided after the exposure was eliminated.[60]:165 The National Research Council also noted a study which found exposed children were found to have an “excess of seizures, learning problems, hyperactivity, eye irritation, skin rashes, abdominal pain, and incontinence” and stunted growth.

Imbecilic douchebag assholes should read the links they post, imbecilic doucehbag: “Kabat ends this excellent and informative book by calling for making better distinctions between issues that should receive attention and funding and those that should not: “There are real problems and there are false problems, that is, problems that, to the best of our knowledge, are not problems at all. Vaccines, genetically modified crops and foods, and cell phones are not threats to our well-being. We need to get better at distinguishing false problems from real problems” (p. 177).

I noted at the start of this review that Kabat set himself two goals for Getting Risk Right. He more than accomplishes both goals. “

You who defend Monsanto make me laugh , you make it sound like Monsanto is out to save the world one chemical and one patent at the time lol.

Monsanto is out for one thing and one thing only profit which there is absolutely nothing wrong with that… but the way they try to make that profit is what is whats wrong with Monsanto.

Once Monsanto has a patent on every seed who will own the world . if your so big of a idiot not to understand its not chemicals and patents or seeds its clean water and irrigation that’s the answer to feeding the world . but there’s no profit in clean water,

Just come down to the Okeechobee here in Fl and see what your savor Monsanto has done

Whether or not genetic material (seeds) should be eligible for a patent is an important social question.

However, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the article above.

Okeechobee’s water pollution problems also have nothing to do with the article above and precious little to do with Monsanto. Okeechobee’s problems date back 135 years and are dominated by the devastation of wetlands for the sugar cane industry and aggravated by Corps of Engineers decisions about water management to protect the dikes along the southern rim of the Lake.

— Patent on every seed in the world? Actually limiting patent law is a good idea but “thinking” a patent could be enforced on every kernel of grain/corn/rice in the world is just idiotic. Please pay patent right for every kernel of corn I had for dinner?

— Freely produced (Not Government Forced) Profit IS by very definition beneficial to each person paying said profit in some way or the other. Like the idea of 6x the labor put into a can of corn; then buy organic.

— You do realize that Monsanto accomplishments are entirely ABOUT creating bigger crops right? So big idiots think small plants will “feed the world” so long as they use bottled-water instead of rain runoff?

— We have multiple Monsanto mining in our area; They’re cleaner and more careful than most around here.

Oh, and there is no record at all of Monsanto’s representatives lying under oath, but there is plenty of record of luddite imbeciles lying all over the internet. See the imbecilic trueman, the consistent liar JFree, CMW, wcd1960, and the newest scumbag clotz. Fuck off, slaver.

However anecdotal, I know two people who have died from Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and they both were professional landscapers that sprayed Round-Up almost daily. Combine this with years of VA treatment of Agent orange dioxin damaged Veterans and it is easy to connect the dots. This article is not a substitute for the cogent findings that show Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and Round-Up to be related.

And one post up…. WE have Government sources being the “extremely-propagandist”… I guess we’ll ALL just have to dismiss ALL factors. Gosh; here on the American Cancer Societies website it shows the chance any person has of getting NHL is about 2 in 10,000 and over-half are at the ages of 65 to death.

Do you think only 2 in 10,000 people use Round-Up? Or is that “extremist-propagandist” too?

But, clever and visionary as they were, their understanding was imperfect. They thought that a capitalist society would lead to a situation where every man was his own master, and that employment would be a temporary condition where the young learn their way in the world under experienced tutelage before striking off independently. They never foresaw a future where employment was a life long dead end for the overwhelming majority of the citizenry, or that wealth would concentrate to the extent it does.

BETTER stay at home then and become a tax-payer funded liability since the other option is to accept the “risk to humans” driving to work for “profit” at the expense of the “planet”.

Oh wait, I know — Just do what other communist/socialist societies did and go around doing MASSIVE genocide to “save the humans and the planet”. You’re one of those, “Humans are an infecting disease of the planet earth” people aren’t you? I think y’all should be launched into space so y’all can position yourself into the “nothingness” y’all LONG so deeply for.

Google is now paying $17000 to $22000 per month for working online from home. I have joined this job 2 months ago and i have earned $20544 in my first month from this job. I can say my life is changed-completely for the better! Check it out whaat i do…..

Start working at home with Google! It’s by-far the best job I’ve had. Last Wednesday I got a brand new BMW since getting a check for $6474 this – 4 weeks past. I began this 8-months ago and immediately was bringing home at least $77 per hour. I work through this link, go to tech tab for work detail.

I seen some make a argument that they or someone they know has used roundup all there life without a effect .

Well some people have chained smoked or knew someone who has all there life without effect to there health does that mean we should allow people to smoke every where subjecting all people to second hand smoke and remove the cancer warnings .

Yes, because the modern day taboo around smoking and health is almost entirely based on propaganda. Secondhand smoke is UTTERLY and UNDENIABLY nothing but radical parroting of purely idiotic propaganda and even those parroting KNOW its a load of crap.

Just like the alcohol prohibition propaganda, the Jew propaganda, the Drug-war propaganda. ALL of which is forbidden by the U.S. Constitution at the Federal Level of interest. Lets just peg it for what it is — The Federal Government spent $468 BILLION of taxpayers money on generating propaganda and another $200 BILLION through some bogus racketeering case.

When its utterly obvious that Smokey the Bear spending day-in and day-out around a camp fire would show the same ‘slight’ increase in lung problems. Its the same compulsive dust (EARTH) inhalation and marijuana smoking.

^”same with compulsive dust”. Even the statistical research done funded by that money on the subject show a persons race is a BIGGER factor on lung cancer death than smoking. Only 10-15% of lung cancer patients are smokers ( the other 85 to 90% don’t smoke! ). There is no difference between smoking and non-smoking under the age of 50. And any place that “advertises” otherwise uses “ever touched a cigarette” as deeming them as a smoker. The oldest living person at 122-yrs was a smoker.

I’m not going to pretend that “too much” of anything isn’t bad for a persons health but the “general consensus” around smoking is utterly based on a propaganda driven foundation.